“I don’t understand. You mean my father?”

“No, not your father. He was a lovely man, but he was just the jockey. If you’ll permit the analogy.”

“Lombard?”

“Indeed. He was an enterprising little thief. You upset a rotten apple cart.”

“But my father . . .”

Calista looked at him pityingly. “Were you taken in by their version? That it was your father? Oh dear, no. Your father was loyal to a fault. A trait he shared with George. Duke Vaughn was merely a convenient scapegoat. The dead have no rights, or so my lawyers tell me, and rarely rise to defend themselves. Have you really gone all these years believing your father a thief?”

A surge of vertigo clouded Gibson’s vision, and a high-pitched feedback in his ears pushed the party away. He staved off the urge to put his head between his knees. Instead, he interlaced his fingers as if in angry prayer and held Calista’s gaze.

“Why didn’t you come forward?” he asked after a long moment.

“A fair question. Because, simply put, it was not in my interests.”

“It was your interests Lombard was stealing.”

“Yes, and my money was returned.”

“So that’s it?”

“Politics is an ugly picture with a pretty frame. Much as I enjoyed Duke Vaughn, I was not about to embroil my family in a feud with Benjamin Lombard to salvage your deceased father’s reputation. The cost to my own would have been irreparable.”

“You let Lombard win.”

“And I lived to fight another day. The lesser of two evils.”

“So is that why I’m here? To assuage your and George’s dirty conscience?”

“Oh, heavens no. That was all George. He’s such a good man. Noble even. It’s his great failing,” she said with an amused smile.

“So this arrangement wasn’t your idea.”

“Hire the man convicted of framing Benjamin Lombard to find Suzanne? It’s grotesque. Whatever choices you made were your own and have nothing whatsoever to do with me. But George, bless his heart, thinks it has symmetry. And so here we are.”

“So why are we here?”

“To balance George’s karmic scales, I suppose.”

“No. Why are we here?” he clarified.

“Ah. Why have I invited you to my home, you mean? Because, regardless of my feelings about Benjamin, Suzanne remains very dear to me. I am her godmother. I was at her christening. I helped raise her. She was an angelic baby. Truly. One of those who never cried. She was a treasure and a wonderful young lady. As you well know. She had the appetite for life that my family has frittered away. She was brilliant, or would have grown to be. What happened to her is a tragedy.”

She took a long drink from her wineglass. It was some time before she went on.

“I’m sorry. The subject is very raw to me. Even after all this time.”

“I understand,” he said.